


Friendship

by orphan_account



Category: Sarah Jane Adventures
Genre: Bechdel Test Pass, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2012-12-20
Packaged: 2017-11-21 18:35:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/600861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maria tries to explain and understand her relationship and friendship with one Hermione Granger. Sarah Jane urges restraint and caution, but Maria is still too jealous.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Friendship

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Caitrin Torres (ctorres)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ctorres/gifts).



> I did rework the timeline so that Maria and Hermione are the same age at the same time.

Sarah Jane was bonkers, but not a liar. That's what Maria had said when she first found out about aliens.. Maria tried to use that same line about Hermione. "But I'll be able to tell her all the things that I've done and -"

"Maria," Sarah Jane said simply. "Maria, there are no such things at witches and goblins and dragons. At least, not here on Earth."

"But why not?" protested the girl. "Hermione might be crazy, but she's not a liar, she's never been." And it was true. Hermione had never, to Maria's knowledge, ever lied. Hermione wouldn't lie. Hermione had far too high of some messed up moral code to lie. Maria had plenty of anecdotal evidence from when they were younger to back up that claim too, having grown up just across the road from each other.

Sarah Jane sat her down gently in the attic; they'd had tea set out, as they didn't have many days left before Maria left for the states. She looked at Maria with a mix of fondness and sadness, and gently pressed, "What good will it do to tell her your stories?"

"I just ..." Maria trailed off. How did she explain Hermione Granger and the rivalry they'd had since the wee hours of primary school? They were both extremely bright, both top of their class, both competing for attention - though Maria wasn't quite as obsessed with knowing everything as Hermione was. Then, suddenly, Hermione had announced that she was going to an exclusive boarding school in Scotland, and Maria had seethed, jealous, for the rest of the summer.

"Not everyone in the world is ready for our stories," Sarah Jane said softly and Maria, resigned, nodded.

***

That all changed when she was at her mum's before the Big Move, and who should show up at her parents' across the road but Hermione. Everything Sarah Jane said went out the window when Hermione wandered over, and Maria remembered the first time Hermione had come back from her glorious special boarding school, and the years later conversation with Sarah Jane about it.

-

Maria had been going on a rant about Hermione, when Sarah Jane had innocuously asked about who she would miss from England in America, if there were any childhood friends from where she grew up. "She says she got locked into a bathroom with a Troll! A troll! And she got sorted into her House by a magical talking hat! And there are ghosts-"

"That there are, but only in dangerous ways," said Sarah Jane, and even Luke looked surprised. Maria quickly brushed it off, too on a roll to question how exactly Sarah Jane knew that. She had a feeling she wouldn't like the answer if she did.

"That wasn't even the worst part, Sarah Jane! A three-headed dog! She said she fought a three-headed dog and she lulled it to sleep by playing-"

"By playing a song," Sarah Jane's face had gone white. "Hermione was at school with a Kerbian?"

Maria hadn't ever seen Sarah Jane get such a look of concern over a creature that had been mentioned before. Not even of any of the ones that they'd fought; Sarah Jane was calm when she told stories about the man she used to travel with, and Maria knew it was her way of hiding her sadness about losing the man. Maria shook her head, "No way, Sarah Jane. No way are they real."

"They are real. The Kerbian race are not friendly with Earth, not after the incident with Cerberus."

"Cerberus is just a myth, mum," piped up Luke from whatever gadget he was tinkering about with, and Maria looked grateful.

"Some myths are based in reality," was all Sarah Jane said, and again Maria was jealous of Hermione Granger, so she didn't finish the tales that Hermione had told her, of a giant chess board, and magic elixirs, and a man with a dead man attached to him. Not to mention the tales the following summer of a giant snake, but that was all Hermione really said, since she had to revise to make up for missing so much of the school year. Maria had pressed and pressed, but Hermione had stayed mum.

-

"Do you remember a few months ago when the moon was going to crash into Earth?" Maria asked Hermione. "I helped stop it." She couldn't help herself. She was leaving for America in a few weeks, and Hermione was just … there, waiting for Maria to finally one-up her.

"Mmm," was all Hermione said, engrossed in a book (the cover obscured by a dust jacket from Dentistry Today, but Maria wasn't fooled). "I had issues with the moon too. One of my professors was … affected by it."

Maria sat quiet for a second, unsure of how to proceed. She was pretty sure if she asked, Hermione would tell her what she meant by it, but the other part of Maria didn't want to know, didn't want to hear about what wonderfully fantastic things happened to Miss Hermione Granger at her Boarding School for the Gifted and Talented. "I've fought aliens and saved the world several times!" said Maria, suddenly. "After I moved in with my dad. The woman across the street from me, she fights them too. So does her son, Luke, who isn't really her son. You remember Bubble Shock?"

"Aliens aren't real, Maria," said Hermione, with a touch of arrogance in her voice. "I'm sorry I told you those stories from my boarding school, but they're just stories."

"Three-headed dogs are real," Maria shot back. "They're from a race called the Kerbian."

"Fluffy was not an alien, Maria! Honestly!" Hermione spoke, then realised her mistake. "What I mean to say, is that-"

"No, I get it," said Maria, quickly. "Aliens aren't real, and neither is magic."

Hermione smiled at her then, and Maria wished she weren't leaving, weren't leaving Clyde and Luke and Sarah Jane, and weren't leaving Hermione, who she finally, after all these years, had come to an understanding with.

***

"I'll bet she's an alien," Clyde said, grinning broadly. "And there's loads of them at her school, you said? All alien, all waiting to take over the-"

"No, I don't think so!" said Maria sharply, where just weeks ago she would have agreed with Clyde. "I think it's more that we both have these separate pieces of ourselves, for better or for worse, and we hide the worst parts of them from the world. But in order to do that, we have to hide the best parts too."

Sarah Jane spoke softly, so softly that Maria had to lean in to hear her, "The coherency of a relationship is incalculable, I'm glad you've come to realise that, Maria."

"I don't even know what that means."

But Sarah Jane only smiled. "Someday you will."


End file.
